California Dreamin'

The next day, I packed up a picnic lunch and we headed south out of Crescent City to see as much of California as we could in one day. And so it began...

"Let's go to San Francisco"
"No"
"Come on, it's only...look! 368 miles!"
"No"
"San Francisco...."
"No - it's too far."

I went through all the reasons we weren't driving to San Francisco and he went through all his arguments why we should. I won. As it should be.

Wow. Is this what being a mother is like?

Then, we hit more redwoods...everywhere now. As we were driving through the National Park, I kept seeing elk signs so I asked him if he'd ever seen an elk. He had not. So, when I saw a sign announcing what was an "elk meadow" I pulled in. We began walking along the path in some lovely sunshine and I was enjoying the peacefulness of the meadow, even sans elk.

"Wow" he deadpans. "We don't have meadows in Indiana."

I swivel my head around and glare. Then, next comment "I'm tired, my feet hurt, I don't want to walk." This was until he spied the sign that said "waterfall 2.5 miles". He darted up the path and I trudged along behind, exiting my beloved meadow.
After a few turns through the trees, he disappeared. Poof. Gone.

I took a picture to show his real mother the last place I saw him in case she wanted to search for him.

Eventually, he showed back up again, with a waterfall review. "Not much."

Back down into the meadow, he became convinced he smelled a pot plant. He began sniffing every growing thing within reach while I endeavored to convince him it was elk musk. Then, I tried reasoning. "Even if it is pot and you find it, I'm not going to let you smoke it." After some extensive sniffing, he accepted the elk musk theory and we went back to the car and drove back out to the highway.

Where we promptly ran into a large herd of elk.

First Redwoods

Big Huge

Road Trip!

Okay. Imagine a fat middle aged lesbian with green hair and a teenage boy with matching green sunglasses, driving through the middle of a small town with rap music booming out the window of a subaru forester. Were we cool, or what? This was just one of the many experiences I've had in the last 5 days. Add in 9 skateparks, a volcano, 3 herds of elk, 5 starfish, 400 photos, 3 trips through taco bell drive through, 1 episode of psychic taco sense, 3 tanks of gas, 1 night with 1000 bugs, 2 redwood parks, 1 case of the town swallowing dunes, 19 rap songs, 18 dollars won on scratchoffs, countless text messages, 1 panicky night without cell phone service and 1 6 cd set of Dave Chappelle and you pretty much have our road trip.

What an adventure.

We arrived at crater lake after the night of 1000 bugs (and the axe murderer motel) - 7a.m., completely alone, on the rim of crater lake. The mist was still on the lake and the sky was a vivid morning blue. It was amazing. From there, we headed southwest toward the redwoods. These were, in El Nino's words, "big huge". Amazingly enough, despite a parking lot full of tourists, the actual path we chose through the redwoods was completely deserted. Another magical moment.

We found a room in Crescent City, California in a motel owned by a self proclaimed "poor portugee" and used that as our base for the next 2 days.

Turns out El Nino is an amazing photographer. If you want to check out some of his photos (mostly not from this trip but from other trips of his), I will post his flickr on "favorite sites" on the right.

More details later...we have to go have another adventure.

Ahhhhhh!

Today, I leave on a road trip with my son. 5 days in a car with a teenager...this should be quite the adventure. The car has been checked, the weather has been checked, and my bank account has been checked. My, how travel changes when we get older. I will enjoy the trip for myself but I'm especially excited to see a road trip through his eyes. What will it be like to have that kind of freedom for the first time? I've forgotten but I will get to experience it vicariously through him. I hope there will be a lot of road magic. I will be letting him drive (eek) as its not a real road trip without that freedom. Send me good vibes.

Last night a friend was over. She was talking about meditation and art and she said "my work progresses even when I'm not present." I found this quite profound and somewhat reassuring. I love the idea that even if my attention is elsewhere, somewhere inside of me, my spirituality is growing, my art is maturing, and my wisdom is growing. That feels like a really important kind of freedom to me - the freedom to grow in one direction without worrying about withering in another. This is something I want to explore further but frankly, I just woke up and haven't had nearly enough coffee for deep thought.

I will post from the road if I run across a computer for hire but otherwise, I will be back on Wednesday or Thursday. (Another thing to put on the list for the big one - buy a laptop.) I will bring back lots of pictures and stories from the road. Wish us luck!

Sitting Still

Stability appears to be the first thing people are willing to jettison when they are thinking about the life they want. At least according to the poll here that is just finishing. This surprises me as we (we the people) seem to spend a great deal of our lives preparing for stability. We go to college - often, to get a job that keeps us stable. We have a family and then don't travel because of the kids. We buy a house with a big mortgage which keeps us in one place. So, what's the story here?

In my life, I partially (I don't do anything much for just one reason) set out on this stable path to prove I could do it. Most of my life, I was a drifter, a vagrant of life. I moved from state to state and job to job, never settling in one place for long. I liked that life on a lot of levels - full of adventure, lots of stimuli, never boring. It had its stressors...for example, it's expensive to keep setting up household over and over again. Making friends and leaving them wasn't always fun. Overall though, the life was exciting and enjoyable. However, it was the only kind of life I had ever led. I didn't know if I was doing it from choice or because I couldn't do any other kind of life. Becoming stable for 7 years now has allowed me to get a lot accomplished. I could concentrate on moving forward instead of just moving. Now, I've proved that I can do BOTH kinds of living and I am choosing to uproot again.

Last year, I was looking through old photos to send to my son. I stumbled upon some of my parents around the time of my birth. With a shock, I realized that my first home was a 12 foot travel trailer and my parents car was a VW bus. I was conceived on a road trip. My fathers oft-stated goal in life was to "be a gypsy". Is it any wonder I can't stay still?

I intend to have the best of both worlds. I will move about at will but will carry AAA. I will have itinerant jobs and a good retirement plan. I will have a laptop with which to keep up with my friends and family and I will take my partner with me.
It took 7 years of sitting still to find this happy medium. I'm okay with that.

Why are you sitting still?

Road Magic

One of our favorite things to do when we travel is to seek out the road magic. Road magic is what happens when you discover some place that is either unexpected to you or is unexpectedly wonderful. This might be as simple as coming across a fern enclosed waterfall on a hike or as complex as RichArts Art Yard.

Ah, yes, RichArts. We were returning from a birthday bike weekend when we drove through Centralia, Washington. We had read about RichArt and his yard and his fascination with the number 5. Imagine our delight when we arrived there at 5:05pm on 5/25! Magic was already in the air.

We pulled up and entered the yard and RichArt sprung up from the porch where he had been hiding and proceeded to talk at us. He looked like a crusty old sea captain with a tidy silver beard and a bald head that had seen some sun. I half expected him to take out a popeye pipe and start puffing. He walked rapidly from exhibit to exhibit, explaining each one and philosophizing about his art. We bonded. He challenged us to discover the ancestory of each piece and spoke at length about his fights with the community and critics. It was obvious that he took the criticism to heart and that heart was sad because of it. At the same time, he had an air of danger about him...as if he couldn't quite be trusted to stay calm or sane. It heightened the intensity of the experience and kept us kind.

While Suzy stayed entertained by him, I wandered about the yard. I enjoyed the contrast of shapes and the look of the pieces silhouetted against the sky. Several times, I sat on the ground and just looked at something (a series of reflectors or a weathered piece of styrofoam) long enough to absorb its essence. He used a lot of reflectors and styrofoam. One installation was a dinner party setting like something from the creepiest of creep shows. Hubcaps for plates and dried leaves scattered about courtesy of the tree above lent an air of a people that left suddenly for parts unknown. Car people I suppose.

We stayed for close to two hours, with our final view one courtesy of RichArt. He led us across the street and down a block so we could get "the very best view" of his creation.

You can see his very best view or a close facsimile at the corner of Harrison Ave E and M Street in Centralia, Washington. Be kind.

1000 Day Plan

I'm starting to grok that this adventure is going to require much more preparation than I had anticipated. A web friend who is a fulltime RVer sent me a copy of her "1000 Day Plan" which is what they used to prepare for going on the road. It was quite intimidating. It was in spreadsheet form and consisted of 10 categories with each one having multiple sub-categories and had a plethora of points that I had not thought of. These were the categories:

Truck tasks (for us, this would be van tasks)
Medical
Residency
Securing Data
Finances
Retirement Data (not sure if this would apply for us)
Living Local
Asset Disposal
RV Organizations
Residual Tasks

Some of the things I had not yet thought of but seem necessary are: Advanced directive and medical POA, first aid information, healthcare, and residency. Well, maybe I thought of residency as its an important part of travel nursing. This kinda takes the fun out of it - its infinitely more enjoyable to play on etsy and daydream about mountain tops than it is to fill out paperwork. Alas, it is required if I want to make those mountaintops a reality. I will begin the slogging.

Meanwhile, I realized this morning that while doing all the etsy stuff is fun, I really needed to get going on the nursing stuff. I began the long, arduous, mindnumbing task of filling out an agency nursing application. I loathe looking for jobs. In fact, that is one of the things I liked best about working agency - once I did all the paperwork in one city, I could go to that agency in any city and they could just pull up my stats and send me out on a job. Job with a phone call - that's what I like. That is what I'll have again but I just have to do that initial work.

This is all too serious and I had to go out to a bead sale to recover. 40% off and I can rationalize it by saying that they are small and can be used to make things to sell. A girl must have her fun.

Constantly Evolving List to Do

It occurred to me that if this blog is to going to be of use to others, (with the exception of entertainment value of course) that I should put my list on it. This is tentatively titled "Constantly Evolving Extensive List of Things to Do to Get Us Out of This Life and On the Road". Here it is, in no particular order:

Get out of debt.
Save money.
Get rid of stuff.
Research places to go.
Make money on the road.
Get Betty Lou ready.
Food.

I will explore these things in more detail, one post at a time and probably add to the list. After all, there must be others out there that want to get going, eh?

Rambling

Comments have been trickling back about Bisbee. "Nice little artsy town in the middle of a moonscape", "Bisbee? I LOVE Bisbee!", "Weird little town - full of artists and people running from the law...good for about a day." Suzy was perusing the Bisbee internet and found this, http://www.bellestarr-az.com/index.html . I found this delightful. This appears to be a woman who has grasped life with both hands and yelled "yeehaw!"

Next week, I take off on a short little adventure. My son (that seems so weird to say but what other word to use?) is coming to visit and I'm taking him on his first ever road trip. Oh, he's travelled - somewhat extensively even. However, he's never been on the kind of "lets just take off and see where we end up" kind of trip. I'm excited to show him the glories of this kind of travel. There is a story here of course. He's 17 and I just met him for the first time last year. You see, I gave him to a nice normal set of parents when he was born and when he was 15, they looked me up and we've been getting to know each other ever since. I'm looking forward to this trip with him. His parents are pretty spectacular and there's not much I could give him that they haven't already. I can give him this experience though! He wants to see Crater Lake (he studied it in school) http://www.nps.gov/crla/ and California so we will head south.

Otherwise, I've added a few things to etsy and its time for a new photo session. I've been studying up on how to have a successful etsy shop, how to write short stories, how to blog successfully (odd concept) and sundry other trip readying details. I've added 20 bucks from my pay to the freedom fund - not much, but its the habit that counts.

While looking for a picture of crater lake to put at the top here, I found a blog that looks interesting - I've linked it to the right here. This guy (I'm assuming...haven't read too far yet) Dusty Davis, is traveling across the country on his motorcycle. Sounds like fun (except for the motorcycle part).

Idea in Crimson

I have a relationship with John D. MacDonald. It's true I never met the man (and its too late now) but I've heard stories. I was first introduced to him in my fathers library. Unfortunately, it was in my fathers estate library so I never had opportunity to discuss it with him. As I was packing up my fathers belongings, I kept seeing these books. Curious, I set them aside and that night, I became addicted. I found that I loved the combination of action, adventure, and philosophy. I wanted to be Travis McGee. I wanted to be a beach bum with sporadic employment and a responsible ethic and a stash of cash under the floor of my boat. I wanted to spend hours spewing philosophy to a willing audience and then sail off into the sunset with a beautiful woman. Um, maybe I wasn't quite to that last part yet.

A few years later, not yet having exhausted the colors of McGee, I was speaking to my mother about the books. "Oh" she said. "I knew him."

"WHAT?????" I screamed. "You KNEW him???"

"Oh, yes" she casually replied. "He was in Recovery."

Recovery Incorporated was a mental health group my mother belonged to, Mental Health Through Will Training, with world headquarters in Chicago. My mother was a leader in the wee hours of my life. She told me this anecdote.

"I was at a leadership conference in Chicago one year and I met him. I asked him what his addiction was and he said 'pocket books'." I quizzed her for more but that was all she had. I'm not sure she even got the joke.

Fast forward a few more years and I'm working at a white water rafting company, chatting with a river guide. He grew up in Sarasota, Florida. Somehow, the conversation wandered up to MacDonald. Waynes story was this: "I used to go to the beach and there was this man, every day, sitting in a lawn chair on the beach, writing. One day I went up to him and asked him what he was writing. It was Condiminium."

I swooned.

That seems the ideal life to me. Sitting in a lawnchair on the beach, writing a best seller. Maybe interspersed with the above philosophy and sailing off into said sunset. Alas, Travis McGee is no more and neither is his maker. Still, I've never forgotten that it was possible.

What does this have to do with us traveling? Or this blog? Well, last night I wrote a story. I think I'm going to submit it to fieldreport.com (see the link to that at the right). I've always liked to write and the older I get, the more stories build up inside my head. Last night, I put one down and I'm going to try.

Sunset, here I come.

Plan B plus where we want to go

So, its been 4 days since I started the etsy shop and I don't have any sales yet - not even of the least expensive item. Now, I have a lot to do in the shop and I have much more to post but its immediately obvious that while this may ADD to our freedom fund, it is not likely to fill it. I will of course, continue to post items on etsy (there is so much to get rid of after all) but for filling the freedom fund, its on to plan B. This involves actually working more nursing hours. That doesn't seem very pleasant to me, but at least I know where I can pick up some low stress hours and it will only take a couple of shifts a month to get that fund going. Unfortunately, it takes mounds of paperwork to sign up for a nursing agency so I will begin that lengthy process this week. On the up side, once I'm signed up for one, I can pick up work in pretty much any state that I have a license for. I also paid a good chunk on my medium sized credit card this week. That left me broke but feeling very self righteous.

In the meantime, my hair is green.

I am serious.

I've found myself buying fewer things in general this last week. Whenever I'm tempted to pick up this little thing or that little thang, I think "I'm trying to get rid of stuff, not get more" and I put it back. Except for that yard art - somehow that escaped my inner sensibility. Suzy, of course, does not have that shopping habit so this is not a struggle for her. She pretty much just buys popsicles.

One of the first places we want to go is Bisbee, Arizona. For some reason, that has stuck like a burr in our brains and we are determined to check this little town out for a month or two. I'm not sure if its the vintage RV park or the self proclaimed "perfect weather" (or even the artsy vibe) but Bisbee sounds like our kinda place. It apparently grew up around the Copper Queen Mine (we have a copper queen of our own here in Portland - she is called Portlandia) and is in the high desert of SE Arizona. I was googling it to get a picture to put on this post and guess what I found? A Bisbee Bus Blog! See it on our handy blog list on the right... While doing what we do to get to Bisbee, we can get our Bisbee fix at ttp://www.discoverbisbee.com/index.htm .

The Other One

Suzy Tahini Salad Dressing here - obviously not my real name. It came from a conversation with friends 20 years ago about lesbians changing their names to celestial bodies or plants and animals. I've wanted to use this name ever since.

Daily, I think about traveling with Chica in Betty Lou, our traveling van with the push button bed and the van entertainment center. I love taking a nap whenever I want or grabbing a snack from the handy van fridge. I confess...sometimes, I just go sit in Betty Lou in the driveway and make believe we are off on an adventure. Then I take a nap.

Recently, I found out what was causing the pain in my back that I've had for the last year. The doctors are telling me surgery but I don't want that so I'm trying physical therapy. It is frightening to think this could keep us from hitting the road. So, I go to the therapist and have myself put in traction, trying to put my back where its supposed to be so I will be ready in 15 months.

Chica is the optomist and since opposites attract, you know what that makes me. While I am grateful to have an income and a home to share with Chica, I would rather that home be somewhere else and the income derived from a winning lottery ticket. Lacking that, I am looking for other ways to manifest our goal. I'm trying to sell my shiny pretty truck so I can save more money. Anyone want to take over the lease on a fancy Toyota truck? Just let me know!

Success!

In a fit of ambition yesterday, I managed to not only sign up with paypal, I actually completed my first etsy listing. Here is a link to my shop... http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=7193207 . It has one whole item in it - a very exclusive shop. You will notice that it has had viewers AND someone hearted it already! I was so excited that all night long, I kept checking to see how many more people had looked at it. I wiggled a lot. I think that this listing thing could become a drug for me. Think of it - every time someone looks at your listing, its like a little shot of love. And a heart! That's like the first kiss - no commitment but definitely an infatuation.

It seems that I should introduce my job a bit. I like my job - a lot of the time. I just think I'll like hiking through an alpine meadow and sleeping every night much better. I am a nurse in a mid-sized hospital. I'm not a very serious nurse. Last night, I managed to convince one of my patients, a little old man with a bald head, to put a temporary tattoo on the top of his head. I've got some nice biker tattoos I'm donating for the occasion. I've got purple hair and I've been known to sing lullabies to my patients as I'm sticking a tube up their penis. It seems to help. They respond to my brand of nursing. This week, my patients have been especially affectionate. One (the bald one) tells me he loves me at least once an hour and when I was bent over him, giving him an injection, I felt him pat my purple spot and whisper "pretty". Another one insisted on patting my face every time I came close. I wasn't sure whether to hug him or go scrub my face. I've grown used to looking up and seeing one of my colleagues laughing at me interact with my patients - or just with myself. Frankly, it makes me rather paranoid. So, I guess that means I'm getting used to feeling paranoid. I'm a little fearful of quitting my job and going around to other hospitals. I don't remember patients at other hospitals being as much fun. But I need the freedom and flexibility of travel or agency nursing. Do you know about this wonderful thing? As a nurse, you can work a day at a time, get paid at the end of your shift, and only work when you want to - that is agency nursing. Alternately, you can choose to go somewhere for 13 weeks and they pay for your housing and your salary. Imagine, a paid vacation in say, Oahu. The trick is (and the reason for saving money ahead of time) is that I don't want to have to work continuously. Nursing can be incredibly stressful, physically demanding, and exhausting. I'm getting old. I can't keep doing this at this pace.

And so, I blog.

What I've done so far

There are so many things to do to get ready for this crazy idea that my head spins. Here is what I've done so far: started a "freedom account", putting all the spare change, a small reimbursement check, and 25 dollars from my savings account in it. Grand total? 130 dollars and 82 cents. Obviously, more must be done. That is about 2 days on the road. I looked around and saw that I had much stuff. Much of the much stuff has been made by me. If I sell the stuff I've made, it will make money. Enter Etsy. That sounded so simple...just list what I've made and people send money. Not so fast. First, I have to make up an etsy name for my shop. That took a week of thought and finally, I came up with a rather pathetic name - "motley spotz" - a motley name if I do say so. But, I moved on. Next, I have to set up said shop which requires an avatar. I figure out what an avatar is and decide that a picture of the van we will travel in will be appropriate. I take the picture. Then, I take pictures of the things I want to sell. I get distracted halfway through and go to a thrift store. I buy a nice bit of yard art for six dollars. That was after I tried 3 different sets of batteries for the camera, gave up, and bought new ones. Now for photo editing, another skill I don't have. It took another week of fighting with the computer to get appropriately sized photos for above mentioned avatar plus the items for sale. I move on to listing an item. I've resized the 4 pictures that illustrate just one of the things I want to sell and need to describe this item. I go to where I left the item so I can measure it and it is gone. Suzie Tahini Salad Dressing (the name she chooses to be known by), my lovely partner, has cleaned house and my item is gone. I look in all the likely places and cannot find it and its the middle of the night so I can't ask her. So, I resize 4 more pictures of something I can find (eyeballs), measure, and finally I'm ready to post this ONE item. The first question it asks me is how do I want to be paid? Well, with money, of course. But that is not an option. Paypal is an option. But as I'm looking at this place to say I want paypal, it slowly dawns on me that paypal is a separate enterprise that I have to sign up for. Again, I exit etsy and this time, google paypal. There, I discover that there are myriad paypal options and decisions. I can't stand it. I go to bed. Its been two weeks and I still don't have anything listed on etsy.

How we got here

There was a time that our lives were interesting. Full of adventure and freedom. I went to nursing school in part so that I could have MORE adventure and freedom. But it took so long and required so much discipline that somehow, I became responsible. Suddenly (or not so suddenly) it mattered if I called in sick to go to the beach or if I quit a job without notice so that I could catch that ride to the west coast. With the responsible job came debt. Student loan debt, house payment, car payment, credit cards. A mountain of debt...or at least some foothills. Where did my freedom go? Wait! I know! I still have freedom. I have the freedom to choose my life. So I choose a different one. As Dr. Seuss said, "You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose."

However, with age and experience come wisdom. The days are gone where I would just leave everything behind and take off. That is the wrong kind of adventure for me now. So, a goal. October, 2010, my partner and I will hit the road in Betty Lou and see what kind of middle aged trouble we can find. I have 15 months to pay off my credit cards and personal loans, save money for travel and for rainy days, and prepare for this new kind of journey. Wish us luck.